


Quitters Prosper

by MaloryArcher



Series: #ClexaWeek2018 [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Day Seven, F/F, Free day, Romance, Smoking AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 15:31:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13860681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaloryArcher/pseuds/MaloryArcher
Summary: Lexa can't keep herself from staring at the blonde before her.





	Quitters Prosper

She’s staring.

Lexa’s hands are wrapped too hard around the handle of her rolling suitcase, and she can’t tear her eyes away from the blonde on the other side of the glass, just a few hundred feet away.

She watches the other woman, barely able to register her face. She knows she has one. A face. But only because Lexa’s eyes are locked in on the woman’s lips about fifty percent of the time.

The other fifty percent of the time, Lexa’s tracing the path of the woman’s left hand, the path between her mouth and the ashtray in front of her, the path of the cigarette to and from her mouth.

Smoke curls around her, leaving ungraceful halos of smoke in the air near the blonde.

And Lexa is captivated.

She quit, and she’s glad.

Her life will be longer, the interior of her car won’t reek, her nails won’t chip away with yellowed brittleness.

But, god.

She misses it.

It takes too much of her willpower to look away, but she manages.

Focuses instead on her own hands, the grip still tight around her handle.

Lexa relaxes. She takes a breath. She frees up the overpriced water bottle she’d bought after getting through security.

She misses smoking, but the feeling passes.

“If you’re going to stare that hard, you might as well offer to buy me a drink, too. Get a closer look, maybe.”

Lexa’s head snaps up to the unfamiliar voice.

It belongs to the blonde. She’s closer now, not hidden away behind the glass of the smoker’s lounge. She has cloudy blue eyes, and she’s looking down at Lexa expectantly.

“Excuse me?”

“You were staring,” the blonde says, frowning and hoisting a backpack higher on her shoulders, “while I was in the lounge. If you were going for subtlety, it didn’t work.”

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Lexa says, “It wasn’t—” she struggles for an explanation that doesn’t make her seem like even more a creep. The truth seems easier. “I quit smoking pretty recently, so I think I was trying to live vicariously through you.”

“You miss it,” the blonde asks. Her expression softens, just a bit, and Lexa wishes she would’ve looked at more than just the woman’s lips and hand.

She feels like she’s deprived herself.

“Would you,” she asks, taking in the little mark above her lip, the cleft in her chin.

She’s still staring, she thinks.

“I haven’t had to miss it, yet.”

“It’s not so bad, really,” Lexa sighs, “I only miss it when I drink coffee. Or alcohol. Or over my lunch break. Sometimes, at night—”

“So, yeah,” the blonde grins. “Sounds like you miss it.”

“It’s a process.”

“I’m a little envious,” the blonde admits, still standing heads taller than Lexa in her vinyl seat.

“Yeah?”

“I mean, the cravings sound like shit, and the staring at strangers thing I could probably live without, but I’ve been thinking about quitting for a while. Break the habit while I’m still relatively young, you know?”

The blonde bites her lip and sort of looks up to the ceiling, and Lexa stares, even then.

“I doubt I’ll be able to convince you that it doesn’t suck, but a few TV commercials have told me I’m bound to live longer this way. And I’m saving a shit ton of money.”

The blonde is still biting her lip when Lexa finishes, but she’s looking at Lexa intently while she gathers her thoughts.

Staring, even.

And Lexa doesn’t mind it one bit.

“Enough for an overpriced airport drink,” the blonde asks eventually, nodding her head toward the bar at the end of the concourse. She takes a step back, angles her body in that direction. “C’mon, you buy yours and I’ll buy mine, and you can try to convince me it doesn’t suck being a quitter.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Lexa says, gathering her back and her jacket.

“Trust me,” the blonde tells her, “It will be.”

In the end, long after they've made their introductions and bought drinks for themselves and each other, they both quit smoking, but Lexa never really gets tired of staring at Clarke.


End file.
